


Never to touch and never to keep

by BookGirlFan



Category: Pushing Daisies
Genre: F/M, Gen, but it isn't always happy, life continues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 04:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5482700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookGirlFan/pseuds/BookGirlFan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how their story continued.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never to touch and never to keep

This is how their story continued. 

Chuck didn't go with her aunts on their tour. She stayed behind, with Ned, and kept him company when Olive left to start her own business. Emerson still came with cases, but less often now, as he spent more time with his daughter, trying to make up for lost time. 

It had been long enough since Chuck died and came back that she could go out on the streets without being recognized, and after a lot of pleading with Ned, and one argument that left her storming out of the room, Ned relented. Chuck loved the time she spent wandering the city, meeting new people and seeing new sights. Every afternoon, after the Pie Shop was closed, she would tell Ned about her day, and he would smile at her, loving the happiness that lit up her face. 

A few months later, after the aunts returned, Ned proposed, and Chuck tearfully accepted. They had a small wedding, as Chuck was technically still supposed to be dead, with Olive as the maid of honour, and Emerson as the best man. Vivian and Lilly cried, and Mr Charles even snuck into a back seat, not missing his little girl's wedding for the world, even if it was to Ned. 

It was less than a year later their daughter was born. Ned worried the entire time Chuck was pregnant, afraid he would turn out just like his father, or that Chuck's curse would be passed on to their daughter, or what terrified him more than either of those, that his curse would be. When he saw their little girl, though, all his worries flew out of his head. 

A few years passed, and the aunts got another tour offer. This time, Chuck went with them, leaving Ned and their daughter behind. They went to Europe, and Chuck found her father again. This time, with no Ned there to remind her of what she had to come back to, she stayed with him, to adventure together like she'd always dreamed. When the aunts told Ned, he just smiled sadly and let her go, knowing that it would make her happy, and he could never deny Chuck her happiness, even if it robbed him of his. 

Ned raised their daughter alone, watching her making friends and bringing them to the Pie Hole every afternoon. Seeing his daughter sitting in a booth with her friends, talking and laughing, Ned was the happiest he had ever been without Chuck. 

At first, Chuck came back at least once a month, full of stories about her adventures. Ned would listen while she told him everything she had seen, just like on those evenings that seemed so long ago. Their daughter heard of all the adventures as well, her mother playing them out for her, the little girl laughing and clapping at the stories she told. Later, Chuck came less and less frequently; though she tried to be there for important events, sometimes she would be so far from civilization, she wouldn't know that something had happened until weeks later. In the dark of night, when he couldn't sleep, Ned sometimes wondered if Chuck's father was the reason why it could be so hard to contact Chuck. 

One of the events Chuck missed was Olive's wedding to Randy. Olive made a beautiful bride, and from his position as best man, Ned could see the look of adoration on Randy's face as he saw her walking up the aisle. It even made Emerson cry, though he never admitted it, and claimed allergies to her flowers when Olive asked him. 

Chuck came back a month after the wedding, devastated that she had missed it, and that she hadn't been there to be the Maid of Honour to Olive that Olive had been to her. Ned comforted her when she cried, and showed her the picture he had taken of their daughter in her flower girl dress. 

Chuck's devastation didn't last long, however, and soon she was gone again, back to her traveling, discovering the world like she'd always wanted to do. Emerson told him he should divorce her, find a wife that would stay with him and not go 'gallivanting around like a little show pony'. Ned always refused, knowing he could never love another like he loved Chuck. 

Their daughter grew up, Ned looking out for and loving her every step of the way. Her mother was an infrequent, but loving, presence, and her aunt Olive was the real mother figure of her life, even after she and Randy had kids of her own. When her father was on a case with her uncle Emerson, she was babysat by Uncles Maurice and Ralston, or, when she was older, cousin Penny. What she loved best, however, was those afternoons she spent in the kitchen with her father, making pies, and even though Ned had been quieter since Chuck left, she knew that he loved those afternoons too. 

As their daughter grew up, Ned grew older. One day, he looked at a photograph Chuck had sent him, taken just earlier that month, and realised she didn't look any different. He knew there were a few strands of grey in his hair, some wrinkles around his eyes, but Chuck showed none of that. She looked exactly the same as she did the day he had awoken her, with a simple touch to her cheek. Would she live forever, he wondered, just staying eternally young and beautiful? He decided he wouldn't mind if she did. What could make Chuck happier, than having eternity to travel the world and see new things with her father? 

It wasn't until years later that he realised the cost for Chuck's immortality. At the age of fifty two, he was old. He had seen his daughter grow up into a beautiful young woman, his beloved wife stay exactly as lovely as ever, and his friends live happy lives. Now, he was dying, because he had spared Chuck's life. 

When he had saved her that day, it seemed, he had given her some of his own life. When she had used him to bring back her father, the same thing had happened. For the last twenty odd years, he had been living the life of three people, and had been collecting the age that went with it. Fortunately, it seemed, it was not a direct comparison. Instead, for every year the two of them lived in their re-alivened state, he lived a year as well, in addition to his own. Now, at the age of fifty two, those years had caught up to him. 

His daughter was a grown woman now, living on her own. Olive was still running her restaurant, with the help of her and Randy's kids. Penny had joined Emerson in his detective agency, and was now a full partner, who would likely take over in the not too distant future. Ned's brothers, Maurice and Ralston, had had only one great success in their magic career: finding a beautiful pair of assistants, who they fell in love with and married. Still, their magic careers met with enough success to keep their names known in the area, if not much beyond. 

Really, Ned reflected, it was Chuck who he knew the least of at this point. After her aunts' funerals a few years ago, she hadn't come back since, instead traveling with her dad. As Ned had suspected over a decade ago, Charles Charles and Charlotte Charles grew no older. Chuck still looked the same as she had when he realivened her over twenty years ago, and her father was in the same state of decay as he had been then. They still journeyed the world together, but the postcards continued no longer.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Let Her Go, by Passenger. It fits Chuck and Ned so well, especially if you read the lyrics as Ned and the chorus as Chuck.


End file.
